Moo needed to go to his bloodwork follow-up vet appointment this morning so I packed him up and took him out to the car to get my umbrella as I was going to walk him over, yes, I live that close to my vet.
When I got out my door, I noticed my garage door had stopped halfway up. I figured it was nothing too major (gdoor has had issues in the past) and brought Moo into the garage with me, threw away the cat scoop bags/recycled the cat food cans, and decided to pull the manual door cord so that I could open/shut the garage door and figure out what was wrong with it when I had time, like after Moo's appt.
I pulled the cord and...... SHEBAAAAANG!!!
I had absolutely no time to catch the garage door, it just slammed shut so fast with the biggest bang.
I went over to the door, which was now on manual, thinking "wow, that was exciting but no prob, I'll just open the door and be on my way" and apologizing to Moo for the scary-ass door.
I pulled, nothing happened, I pulled again, nothing, I then started doing the "pull-the-car-off-my-trapped-love-one" move, nothing, tried the Hulk, nothing, frenzied yanking and pulling, nothing, nada, zilch except for three little bitty inches.
Yep, I was trapped in my frickin' garage! At a quarter of 8 in the morning with a heart diseased cat who needed to get to his appt, I needed to go to work, and no one knew I was there.
I started pacing, swearing, and panicking.
Yeah I know. Why didn't I just go out the other door? Coz there's only one way into my garage and it was currently only opening 3 frickin' inches.
Yeah I know. Why didn't I just get on my cell phone and call someone like my parents, neighbor, best friend, repair man? Coz I don't have a cell phone.
Blasphemy in today's tech age, I know!
So the whole time I'm pacing and panicking, I'm also periodically pulling on the damn door trying to figure out what to do as breaking the framed-in unopenable window is totally the last resort.
Oh, and apologizing profusely to poor Moo who was the absolute last cat to be in this position! I was praying real hard this didn't kill him.
I finally decided the damn door wasn't going anywhere, my garage is set way back away from the street so no one can see it unless they were right at the end of my driveway which wasn't happening and by the time an early morning runner ran by I'd have missed them and they'd probably be wearing earbuds anyway, my left-hand neighbors are elderly and hard of hearing, so I crossed my fingers hoping my right-hand neighbor was home and had her back sliding glass door open, and started screaming my neighbor's name at the top of my lungs at the 3in opening. Then I thought if she did hear me, she wouldn't know where it was coming from so I stood up, screamed her name repeatedly and banged on the gdoor windows. Don't ask me how long I was going to keep that up because I honestly DO NOT know.
I finally, it must have been about 5-6min, I saw her poke her head out the sliding glass door so I banged even harder and yelled "it's Sam and I'm trapped in my garage!!" She came over, still in her nighty, and was amazed. So calm too, she said she thought it was kids so she checked out her front door and didn't see anyone and because she kept hearing the screaming she kept trying to figure out where it was coming from. She said she and her b'friend also heard the gdoor crash-bang but didn't know where it came from so didn't think anything of it until she heard the screaming. She enlisted the assistance of her b'friend who asked me to turn a light on and look at the mechanics of the door while she called the vet for me and the PDQ Door guys.
I found one of the main springs had cracked but the door was still in it's track and there was nothing blocking the tracks so I could not find a reason why the door would only open 3 f'in inches. My neighbor came back and said the vet told me to come in whenever I was free (hah) and the PDQ guys weren't yet open but given the circumstances, they were sending a tech RIGHT over but it would be about 20 min.
My neighbor's b'friend is an architect and he'd gone off but came back with some wood and branches, fashioned a lever while discussing Archimedes, and with me and the neighbor pulling on the door and him manning the lever, we all managed to get the door unstuck from whatever it was, and I and Moo were free!
I rushed Moo to the vet, Dr. H pronounced him no worse for the wear, they took blood, and the PDQ guy was there when I got back talking to my neighbor.
After bundling Moo into the house, I came back out and my neighbor had just finished commenting that the PDQ guys must get calls like this every so often. PDQ Guy said "nope, this was the first human trapped in a garage for them!" Nice.
Only me.
And PDQ guy was a hottie. Again nice and only me!
Gdoor is fixed, new springs/cables/etc and now works like a charm $200+ and a HI-larious story later.
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